The Body Problem

Toons on Bodies

My father always said, “You got a car, you got car problems,” which is why I, clever problem-solver that I am, never got a car. But the same logic applies to having a body, and nobody even consulted me before they thrust corporality upon me. I guess it has its perks— reaching out, touching me, touching you— but the drawbacks can be fierce. My body, for example, is taking jetlag as an excuse to wreak all sorts of havoc, like losing my wallet and scalding my arm with hot coffee. So this week, I asked toonsters to muse on the joys and pitfalls of these gloopy fleshballs we call home, and here’s what they came up with.

-Sofia

Ariella Elovic

Reckless, unadulterated and haphazard indulgence in melty crispy mozzarella is worth the pain. Oh to for a moment pretend I’m not lactose intolerant. A thrill!

Ellis Rosen

Me? I’m a walking guy. It’s something my body is good at! I can walk miles and miles taking in the scenery, getting lost in thought, arriving to appointments really late. I just love it! Does my love of walking have anything to do with the fact that I don’t know how to drive and barely know how to ride a bicycle? NO, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FACT THAT I DON’T KNOW HOW TO DRIVE AND BARELY KNOW HOW TO RIDE A BICYCLE! Why would you even bring that up?! Jerk. 

Hilary Campbell

Thanks to anxiety, many of our bodies have an unreal amount of issues. Thanks to western medicine, we have ways to fight those issues. Thanks to insurance companies, they’re really expensive. My body? It’s covered in psoriasis! And that’s only the beginning of my adorable problems!

Amy Kurzweil

Is your belly button too deep? Eyelashes too short? Knuckles too bulgy? Are your dimples crooked? Do not worry, aging reader, there’s a Youtube channel for that. Thank god I have infinite access to thoughtful remedies for an ever-expanding array of beauty deficiencies I didn’t even know existed. Before the internet, we had to live with the differing levels of droopiness of our right and left eyelids, or else shell out for expensive anti-drooping eyelid surgery. But now we can just subscribe to @DoctorDepuff, and with only three hours of face yoga a night, forever age symmetrically! 

Zoe Si 

One of the wonderful things about bodies is the longer you have one, the less you get to do with it that doesn’t result in new kinds of protracted suffering. This eventually leads to you “growing out” of things your younger body used to enjoy, like entire bottles of rosé on a Wednesday, tetherball tournaments in Birkenstocks, and having a bean bag chair as the only chair in your apartment.

Jason Katzenstein

Jet lag and daylight savings both affect me profoundly. So, I imagine, would ingesting a whole clock. 

Sofia Warren

I have dated in my adult life, which makes me an anthropologist. Here’s my academic observation: adults are so weird about sleeping. Twenty-somethings do not care: they will sleep for three hours on the floor in a room with fluorescent lights flickering and no air flow while outside a dump truck runs over a cat. But thirty-somethings: those fools are so protective of their sleep habits. The temperature must be 68 degrees. The white noise machine must be on. Phones must be in the other room. Years ago, I found sleep-finnicky adults annoying, but now, as I wipe the blood from my nightly lamb sacrifice off my hands and step into my cryogenic vampire coffin at exactly 10:47pm, I just give the adults of the world a knowing little nod.

ToonStack News Stack:

• Check out Ariella Elovic’s book all about bodies, Cheeky: A Head to Toe Memoir and her newsletter, Snack Time!

• Sofia Warren’s Radical: My Year with a Socialist Senator is out and available to order here.

• Amy Kurzweil teaches cartoon classes on Patreon! Sign up now to get the recording of every past class, and join the next live class!

• Listen to Hilary’s podcast What’d You Do This Weekend?

• Order Send Help! a desert island cartoon collection by Ellis Rosen and Jon Adams, out now!

• Have you checked out cartoonstock.com? Thanks to New Yorker cartoon editor emeritus, Bob Mankoff, this is the place to license and buy prints and merch of the best cartoons in the world, from The New Yorker, Wired, Airmail and...ToonStack! 

• Be sure to check out Shelby Lorman’s newsletter, Please Clap!

• The same goes for Sofia Warren’s advice newsletter, You’re Doing Great!

• See more cartoons from Ellis Rosen’s weekly Junk Drawer!

Thanks for reading! Why not use your body-hands to throw us a lil like, a lil note, or a lil share?